By DAVID NOWAK, Associated Press, Sat May 16

MOSCOW – Riot police broke up several gay rights demonstrations in Moscow on Saturday, hauling away scores of protesters hours before the capital hosted a major international pop music competition.

No injuries were reported, but the detentions could damage Russia’s desire to be seen as a modern nation as it holds the finals of the Eurovision song contest, a cultural event televised around the world.

City officials had warned that they would not tolerate marches or rallies supporting the rights of gays and lesbians, but activists had targeted Moscow and the Eurovision contest to press their claims that Russia officially sanctions homophobia.

Moscow police spokesman Anatoly Listovetsky said 40 people were detained, but media reports said up to 80 had been seized. None of the protests in central Moscow took place near the capital’s Olimpiysky Sports Complex, where the Eurovision concert being held live Saturday night.

Police seized gay rights advocates as well as some religious and nationalist protesters who staged counter-demonstrations. They also took away gay rights activists for talking to reporters, and ripped the bra and shirt off one female protester.

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has drawn international criticism by describing homosexuality as “satanic” and seeking to justify official discrimination against gay people in Russia by claiming they help spread the AIDS virus. Luzhkov has banned gay pride rallies in recent years, and attempted marches by gay activists have typically ended in detentions and attacks by nationalist groups.

Among those detained Saturday were British activist Peter Tatchell and American activist Andy Thayer of Chicago, co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network.

Tatchell and most of the others were detained during a hastily organized protest near Moscow State University in southwest Moscow, where about 30 protesters shouted “Homophobia is a disgrace of this country!” and “We are demanding equal rights!”

“This shows the Russian people are not free!” Tatchell yelled as he was being dragged to a police car. He was released a short time later.

“The arrests were done in a very violent, aggressive manner,” Tatchell told The Associated Press after his release. “We believe the reaction of the Moscow police was totally unjustified.”

Tatchell said Russian gay rights leaders had appealed to Eurovision contestants to denounce the police crackdown from the stage at tonight’s competition. The live contest, which pits finalists from 24 different nations against each other, has drawn up to 100 million television viewers previously and is Europe’s most prestigious pop song competition.

“Today’s arrests go against the principles of Eurovision, which are about peace, harmony, cooperation and unity between all the peoples in Europe,” Tatchell said.

Thayer was hustled off by police as he spoke with reporters.

“If … the right to assemble is taken away from lesbian and gay people here in Russia, then other Russians have to fear for their own freedom,” Thayer said, just before police burst through a ring of journalists to take him away.

Police ripped the shirt and bra off one female protester, who identified herself as Ksenia Prilebskaya, and roughly pushed her into a police bus. Her glasses fell and she shrieked in apparent pain.

City authorities had barred Saturday’s rally, saying it was morally wrong.

“(Gay pride events) not only destroy moral foundations of our society, but also purposefully provoke disturbances that will threaten the lives and safety of Moscow residents and guests,” City Hall spokesman Sergei Tsoi was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying Saturday.

At one rally a short walk from the Kremlin, about 50 demonstrators from nationalist and Orthodox Christian organizations denounced homosexuality. One man was detained when he alleged officials in the Kremlin were gay.

A half-dozen anti-gay rights demonstrators were also seized by police during a demonstration in Moscow’s central Pushkin Square.

Decades of official persecution of Russian gays ended in 1993 with the decriminalization of homosexuality, but opposition to gay rights remains widespread.

There are no official estimates of how many gays and lesbians live in Russia, and only a few big cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg have gay nightclubs and gyms.

Gay activists say several gay male couples have attempted to wed since the mid-1990s, but officials rejected those efforts. Last week two homosexual women were denied their application for a marriage license.

Associated Press writer Peter Leonard contributed to this report.

A Russian anti-gay activist is taken away by riot police officers in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, May 16, 2009.  (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

Photos: Moscow police is getting ready for Gay Parade disrupt on the Eurovision Final day.

Photos by Norwegsky Lesnoy

source: esctoday.com

Russian singer and producer Philip Kirkorov has announced that he is withdrawing from the Eurovision Song Contest jury in his country, both as member and chairman. The decision follows questions about his impartiality due to his close relationship with some participants in the competition. He will continue to work for Channel One Russia as commentator of the Final of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, this Saturday.

Last night during the Second Eurovision Song Contest semi final winners’ press conference, a journalist asked Greek representative Sakis Rouvas if his close friendship with Kirkorov would help Greece to win votes from Russia. Rouvas responded by saying that Kirkorov was a professional and would never allow his personal feelings to influence his responsibilities.

Philip Kirkorov gave the following statement:

“I am grateful for the honor that the organizers bestowed on me, to be chosen as the president of a professional jury…This job is certainly very interesting for me, because for many years I have been involved in the Eurovision Song Contest - first as a participant, than as a producer, consultant and always as a big fan. However, I decided that I need to refrain from participating in the judging process as a member of the jury, since I’ve taken such an active role in the life of the contest and have close ties with some of the contestants, for instance with Sakis Rouvas, who I’ve been friends with for many years. All this can raise questions from the participating countries about the objectivity of the decision of the Russian jury.

“Of course my colleagues and I understand that for a professional, personal friendships don’t matter and do not play any role in the scoring of a song, but I cannot let even a slightest shadow of doubt involved with this process and have questions raised about the impartiality of a professional Russian jury and my role as chairman. That is why I took the decision to leave. This will allow me to freely express my opinion and to communicate openly with contestants from different countries, which for me as an artist and a producer means a great deal”.

Svante Stockselius, Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of the European Broadcasting Union, commented: “We respect the decision of Philip Kirkorov, who we know as a committed musician and dedicated supporter of the Eurovision Song Contest and its participants. He assured us that he voted independently in the first Semi-Final and also signed a declaration stating so”.

Philip Kirkorov represented Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1995 and was involved with several entries ever since, including Ani Lorak’s Ukrainian entry last year that placed second. The Final of the Eurovision Song Contest will take place this Saturday, 16th of May, in Moscow, Russia. Professional juries and televoters in all participating country will each provide 50 per cent of the outcome.

By Anna Malpas / The Moscow Times, 14 May 2009

Moscow is gearing up for the Eurovision Song Contest final on Saturday, which will pit 25 nations against each other in a festival of outrageous costumes, flag-waving patriotism and clunky lyrics.

The event threatens to be overshadowed by violence, however, as gay rights activists plan to hold an unsanctioned march in central Moscow earlier in the day.

The final is scheduled to begin at 11 p.m. Saturday at the Olimpiisky Sports Complex. The show will be hosted by comedian Ivan Urgant and pop singer Alsou, who was a Eurovision contestant for Russia in 2000.

Last year’s winner, Dima Bilan, will perform with the circus show from Cirque du Soleil. Organizers also plan a satellite link with the International Space Station.

The first semifinal Tuesday saw 10 acts move on to the final, while another 10 finalists were to be selected in the second semifinal, which was to begin late Thursday night.

Russia, Germany, Great Britain, France and Spain have an automatic bye into the final.

Britain’s entry, Jade Ewen, will be accompanied on the piano by composer Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. The German entry will feature burlesque star Dita von Teese.

Russia’s contestant, Anastasia Prikhodko, hosted a crowded party at the Eurodom club Wednesday. She performed her song, “Mamo,” as the audience knocked back vodka with traditional bread and salt.

Prikhodko’s song sparked controversy in Russia because its lyrics are in Ukrainian as well as Russian.

“All the listeners will understand the word ‘mama,’ whatever their language,” Prikhodko told The Moscow Times in a recent interview. “I would really like the audience at the contest to experience all the emotions that the heroine of this song goes through.”

Her song was panned as a “dirge of a ballad” by The Guardian this week.

Norway, Greece and Turkey are considered favorites to win, despite accusations from some fans and delegations of block voting by Eastern Europeans.

Gay rights activists are expected to hold a protest at about noon Saturday in central Moscow. Organizers said they would release the details on their web site, Gayrussia.ru.

Gay rights activists on several occasions have been beaten by opponents and physically prevented by police from staging gay pride events.

One Eurovision contestant has vowed to boycott the final if there is violence at the march, which organizers have dubbed “Slavic Pride.”

Gordon of The Toppers, the group representing The Netherlands, intends to attend the demonstration and will boycott the final if “there is extreme violence,” the group’s spokesman, Marco de Koning, said Thursday.
The Netherlands was set to perform in the second semifinal Thursday night.

Mayor Yury Luzhkov has called gay parades “satanic,” and City Hall spokesman Sergei Tsoi told Interfax last week that there had “never been a gay parade in Moscow, and there won’t be one.”

Any unsanctioned protests during Eurovision will be dealt with “harshly,” acting Moscow police chief Alexander Ivanov said Tuesday, Interfax reported.

A City Hall spokesman reached by telephone Thursday declined to confirm whether permission for the gay pride demonstration had been formally denied.

British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell flew to Moscow to attend the march and issued a statement Thursday calling for city authorities to hold talks with gay activists.

Tatchell attended the attempted gay pride march in Moscow in 2007 and was badly beaten and arrested.

By Natalya Krainova / The Moscow Times, 13 May 2009

Moscow dogcatchers resorted to poisoning and beating stray dogs to death as they followed orders from City Hall to clean up the streets ahead of the Eurovision Song Contest, animal rights activists said Wednesday.

Ecology for Human Rights, an animal rights group, has received about 50 complaints since last fall about the inhuman treatment of stray dogs at dog shelters, said Yelena Nadyozhkina, who organized a rally of about 70 people to protest the issue near the Pushkinskaya metro station on Wednesday.

She said dogcatchers often beat the animals to death and feed them poison that can cause them to choke to death.

“We are against inhuman treatment of animals and their killing,” Nadyozhkina said.

Mayor Yury Luzhkov “recently” issued an order “reinforcing the catching” of stray dogs, said Olga Veldina, spokeswoman for the prefect’s office in Moscow’s central administrative district.

Veldina said she had no further details about the order and no information about methods used to catch and deal with stray dogs.

Сity authorities have allocated 3 billion rubles ($93.8 million) for stray dogs in 2009, including for their catching, neutering and vaccination, Saveanimals.ru said, citing a May 7 City Hall order.

Moscow authorities removed stray dogs from the city ahead of the 1980 Summer Olympic Games.

Mikhail Dolbnya, an official who deals with stray dogs at the prefect’s office in the eastern administrative district, said he had not heard about the City Hall order.

“Our brigades are working as usual,” Dolbnya said.

He denied that stray dogs were treated inhumanely, calling such allegations “rubbish,” and he said the dogcatchers save people from dog bites.

There are some 30,000 stray dogs in Moscow, and the city plans to build 15 shelters to house them by the fall, Saveanimals.ru said.

Animal rights activists who attended Wednesday’s rally — from teenagers to pensioners — said they hoped that Eurovision would draw the international spotlight to their cause.

Protesters held signs in Russian and English that read, “Murder in the Name of Eurovision,” “A City Without Dogs Is Music Without Notes,” and “Eurovision, Defend Animals From Cruelty.”

On the poster: “Do these songs worth their lives?”

Anna Bogomolova, an 18-year-old student carrying a sign that said “Eurokilling 2009,” accused authorities of illegally clearing the streets of dogs “just because some foreign guests might not like them.”

Animal rights activists are not the first to use Eurovision to promote an issue. Gay rights activists plan to stage Moscow’s first gay pride parade on May 16, the final day of the contest, despite a ban by City Hall.

Moscow government is terribly afraid of the swine flu epidemic. Thousand of foreign guests will come to Russian capital these days for Eurovision Finals, and many of them from Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Spain, - countries where the flu cases were registered. All Moscow health units - hospitals, clinics, ambulance stations etc. are set in the high alert regime.

Moscow medics got a strict order: to hospitalize everyone with the slightest symptoms of the flu or even cold.

MOSCOW (Reuters), Thu May 7, 2009 - Moscow has banned a gay parade planned to coincide with its hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest because it will “destroy morals” in the capital, a spokesman for the city’s mayor said Thursday.

Gay rights activists have staged small unsanctioned parades in Moscow without government approval over the past few years. But they have faced arrests and severe beatings by anti-gay and neo-fascist groups.

Moscow gay parade

“The Moscow government is saying: Moscow has never had gay parades and it never will,” said Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s spokesman, Sergei Tsoi. “Not only do they destroy morals within our society, but they consciously provoke disorder which threatens the lives of Muscovites and visitors.”

Parade organizer and prominent gay rights activist Nikolai Alekseyev said on his website www.gayrussia.ru that the event would take place anyway.

“This is our right and it is guaranteed by the constitution. No official, including the Moscow mayor, has the right to violate it,” Alekseyev said.

But Luzhkov’s spokesman said any attempt to hold an unsanctioned gay parade would be “toughly stopped by law enforcement agencies in accordance with the law.”

Luzhkov, who has been mayor of Moscow since 1992, once said gay parades were “a satanic act”.

Moscow gay parade

Russia did not decriminalize gay sex until 1993, two years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, and intolerance is widespread.

Moscow has no gay-friendly district and the homosexual scene is still largely underground. Public displays of affection between same-sex couples are rare.

The gay parade, scheduled for May 16, was meant to coincide with Moscow’s hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest. Activists had asked that competitors back homosexual rights on stage.

A Swiss-based Eurovision spokesman, currently in Moscow, declined to comment on the banning of the parade but said: “It’s not a secret that we have a large gay audience and we respect everyone’s backgrounds.”

(Reporting by Aydar Buribayev and Amie Ferris-Rotman, editing by Mark Trevelyan)